After wrapping up its season-long, five-match homestand, Cal State Northridge (7-6, 5-6 MPSF) heads back out on the road this week as the eighth-ranked Matadors travel to Honolulu to take on the 11th-ranked Hawai'i Warriors (5-10, 4-8 MPSF). CSUN and Hawai'i will meet Friday at 7 p.m. and then conclude the two-match set Sunday at 5 p.m. The Matadors, 1-3 on the road this season, fell to No. 3 Long Beach State last Friday to wrap up the homestand with a 3-2 record.

NORTHRIDGE ON THE NET

Follow Cal State Matador volleyball online at the official online home of Cal State Northridge athletics, www.GoMatadors.com. Select matches will feature live radio with Mark Scheurmann handling the play-by-play. Fans can also follow the Matadors at Twitter.com/gomatadors and YouTube.com/northridgeathletics. Fans can view and print the Matadors 2013 Record Book online at GoMatadors.com. The guide features statistics and a complete men's volleyball history. Selected Cal State Northridge matches will be streamed live at GoMatadors.com.

MATADORS MAINTAIN NO. 8 RANKING IN AVCA TOP-15 POLL

Despite dropping a four-set decision to No. 3 Long Beach State in its only match of the week, Cal State Northridge remained eighth in this week's AVCA Coaches Top-15 poll. The Matadors, who have now been ranked eighth for three straight weeks, received 133 points this week. Cal State Northridge has now been ranked in 180 of the last 192 weekly polls dating back to the 2002 season. The last time the Matadors were unranked was a period of 12 weeks (Feb. 7-May 2) during the 2011 season. UC Irvine (14-3) remained number one for the second straight week as the Anteaters received 14 of 16 first-place votes. BYU (11-3) remained second this week receiving the remaining two first-place votes. Long Beach State (12-4) is third this week followed in the top-five by Stanford (9-6) and Pepperdine (8-5). UCLA (11-8) is sixth this week followed by Ohio State (11-2), the Matadors (7-6), Penn State (12-3) and Lewis (11-5). This week's top-15 is filled out by Hawaii (5-10), Cal Baptist (6-7), USC (3-8), Harvard (9-2) and Pacific (5-7) ... CSUN also remained eighth for the third straight week in the Volleyball Magazine Top-10 Poll. After receiving a season-high 30 points two weeks ago, the Matadors earned 27 points again this week. CSUN has now been ranked in six of the eight Volleyball Magazine polls this season.

SCOUTING REPORT

11th-ranked Hawai'i (5-10, 4-8 MPSF) returns home after playing four straight on the road. The Warriors dropped three of four over the past two weeks, splitting at No. 6 UCLA and falling twice at No. 1 UC Irvine. Four of Hawai'i's five wins have come on the Stan Sheriff Center floor where the Warriors are 4-3 this season. Hawai'i, which will play eight of its 10 matches at home during the month of March, is led by freshman outside hitter Sinisa Zarkovic who averages a team-high 2.88 kills per game. Zarkovic had 15 kills in a five-set loss at UCI while Brook Sedore put down a team-high 20. Sophomore opposite JP Marks adds 2.79 kpg for the Warriors who are hitting .224 as a team. This weekend's matches are the 64th and 65th meetings all-time between CSUN and Hawai'i with the Warriors dominating the series 47-16. The home team has had the edge over the past several seasons with the Matadors winning five of the last six in Northridge and the Warriors winning nine of the last 10 in Honolulu. The last time a Matador team left the Islands with a victory was 2003 when CSUN won in four (24-30, 30-26, 30-24, 30-21) behind 19 kills from Joe Nargi.

BAKER, LEBROCK WITH SIMILAR STAT LINES

Through 13 matches, senior opposite John Baker and junior outside hitter Brandon Lebrock have strikingly similar statistics. Both players have exactly 156 kills with Baker averaging 3.18 kpg and Lebrock at 3.12. Baker also has a very slight edge in aces (12-10), digs (62-55) and points (184-183). Lebrock has taken eight more swings (369-361) and holds a slim 33-30 edge in blocks. The one statistical category with a dramatic advantage is hitting percentage where Baker is hitting nearly 100 percentage points higher than Lebrock. In 361 attacks, Baker has committed 49 hitting errors while in 369 swings, Lebrock has committed 82 errors.

NORTHRIDGE WILL HAVE TO GET IT DONE ON THE ROAD

If the Matadors are to secure their second straight berth in the MPSF Tournament in late April, CSUN will have to win on the road. Beginning with Friday's match at Hawai'i, the Matadors will play nine of their final 13 regular season conference matches away from The Matadome. CSUN has won just one of its four road matches this season, but two of those losses came at top-ranked BYU (3-1) and the season-opener at No. 5 UCLA where the Matadors held a late lead in a five-set loss. Nearing the halfway point of the MPSF season, CSUN has played 11 of 24 conference matches, the Matadors sit seventh with the top-eight teams advancing to the postseason.

MATADOR MIDDLES HOLDING THEIR OWN

The senior duo of Jared Moore and Drew Staker has more than held up their end of continuing the tradition of stellar middle blocker play for Cal State Northridge. Moore and Staker have traded the team lead in hitting and blocking for much of the season with Moore currently leading in blocking (1.14 bpg) and Staker currently leading in hitting (.493). Both players rank among the top-15 in the MPSF in hitting with Staker second and Moore sixth. The pair also rank among the conference's top blockers with Moore ninth and Staker 14th. Both players are in the homestretch of their CSUN careers and will most certainly etch their names in the Matador record books. Staker is closing in on 100 matches played in his career and with 243 career blocks already ranks eighth in CSUN rally scoring era history. A career .396 hitter, Stake would also rank eighth in hitting pct. Moore is a career .370 hitter with 164 career blocks.

NORTHRIDGE NOTES

The Matadors, who had 864 digs (7.71 dpg) as a team in 2012, have 372 digs so far in 2013 which averages out to 7.15 digs per game. CSUN ranks 12th out of 15 MPSF teams in digs per game with Baker leading the team at 1.27. Junior libero Charlie Condron, who led the team with 177 (2.16 dpg) last season, has 36 digs in 52 games this season, an average of 0.69 per game. Condron has had fewer opportunities to dig the ball this season with fellow libero Nick Alegrado sharing time in the backcourt. Alegrado has 42 digs (0.91) to give the libero duo an average of 1.50 digs per game ... With Saturday's 3-1 loss to Long Beach State, the Matadors have now lost three times this season to teams ranked No. 3. CSUN fell to No. 3 UC Irvine on Jan. 23 and also lost to No. 3 Stanford on Feb. 15 ... The Matadors are hitting .273 (598-230-1349) as a team this season, the exact same percentage as their 13 opponents (661-273-1420) ... CSUN has tailed off in terms of serving aces. Through the first nine matches this season, the Matador servers piled up 45 aces, an average of 5 per match. On Jan. 21, Northridge was leading the MPSF averaging 1.69 aces per game but have since dropped to seventh at 1.06 per game. The Matadors have a total of 10 aces over their past four matches, an average of 2.5 per match.

239 WINS AND COUNTING FOR CAMPBELL

Having become Cal State Northridge men's volleyball's all-time winningest coach during the 2010 season, Jeff Campbell picked up the latest milestone win of his 16-year Matador career in Northridge's 3-0 win at UC San Diego on Feb. 24, 2012. The victory gave the Matador boss his 225th career victory. Campbell, who now has a career record of 239-213 (.529), reached the 150 and 200 career wins over the last four seasons and now sets his sights on his 250th career win. Currently, the third-longest tenured head coach at Cal State Northridge (men's golf coach Jim Bracken is in his 27th season & men's basketball head coach Bobby Braswell is in his 17th season) Campbell has posted double figure win totals in 14 of his 16 seasons on the bench and notched a career-best 24 wins in 2009.

UP NEXT

Following the two-match set in Hawai'i, the Matadors return home for a single match (Mar. 8) against UC San Diego. CSUN defeated the Tritons in their first meeting (3-0) back on Jan. 25. The Matadors will then travel to UC Santa Barbara on Mar. 13 before returning home for its final homestand of the regular season Mar. 15-22 against UCLA, Cal Baptist and BYU.